


four lies and a truth

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: (that is: between some assembly required and the eyghon mess), F/M, set during their first round of dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: “Ms.Calendar,” said Rupert. “Are youtryingto make my life difficult?”
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 20
Kudos: 55





	four lies and a truth

**Author's Note:**

> i made it a month without writing calendiles stuff. honestly, this was inevitable. (look out for a multichapter giles/anya fic tho bc THAT'S ALSO COMING.)

_i._

“Oh, hello, Ms. Calendar!” said the sophomore girl manning the concessions stand, eyes darting between Jenny and Giles. “And…Mr. Giles? Are you two together?”

“Yep!” said Jenny, grinning at the way Rupert’s face went pink. This was honestly the most fun she’d had since coming to Sunnydale. Rupert was either sweet in a dorky way or dorky in a sweet way (she was still deciding), his crush on her was _painfully_ obvious, and he seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that he was easily the hottest teacher on campus. (At least in _her_ estimation.) She hadn’t decided yet when she was going to tell him that this was a date, but now definitely wasn’t the time. “Rupert, I can pay for your snacks if you want—”

“No, no, you paid for dinner, it’s only fair,” said Rupert hastily, then went _scarlet._

The sophomore looked _deeply_ intrigued. Biting back a visible smile, she said, “So, um. What will you both be having?”

“A popcorn and soda for me, I suppose,” said a still-blushing Rupert. To Jenny, he added, “I’ll carry your food up to the seats, if you like.”

Jenny snuck a look at Rupert, considering. How far _could_ she push him? “Uh, two popcorns—”

“Two?” Rupert echoed.

“I’m capitalizing on your generosity,” Jenny replied, and batted her lashes at him in a way that _could_ be passed off as blinking in the stadium lights.

“…ah,” said Rupert. Jenny was used to dating guys who were easily distracted by her attractiveness, but none of them had ever been so easily distracted by _eye contact._ It was a strange hybrid of cute and weird. Nothing about Rupert seemed easy to pin down, she thought.

The sophomore coughed. Jenny, trying to figure out exactly what color the star in Rupert’s eye was, missed this, but didn’t miss the girl saying, “Ms. Calendar, is that all you’re ordering?”

“What?” Definitely not blushing herself, Jenny turned back to the sophomore. “Yeah. No. Um—two popcorns, one soda, and…” She cast around for something else. “Two of those little decorative pennants.”

Rupert blinked. Jenny could almost see him doing the mental math regarding How Many Things One (1) Librarian Would Have To Carry In Order To Impress One (1) Unrealistically Gorgeous Computer Science Teacher. “Good lord,” he mumbled to himself.

“Rupert, I can carry my things—” Jenny began innocently.

“No!” said Rupert, loud and a little awkward. Jenny felt a strange little flutter in her stomach in response to his nervous smile. “No, um—no, I-I’d really like to properly express my…my thanks, with regards to how lovely tonight’s dinner was. Truly, I can carry all of it without any trouble.”

“O-kay,” said the sophomore, who now seemed a little less intrigued and a little more annoyed. “Are you two _done?”_

“Yep, that’s it,” said Jenny, stepping to the side so that Rupert could place down a few crisp bills. Dear _god,_ the man was organized. “Thanks so much for your patience.”

“…sure,” said the sophomore, and proceeded to hand Rupert three popcorns, two sodas, and two of the little Sunnydale pennants.

“Do we really need these pennants?” said Rupert skeptically.

“It’s a _football game,”_ said Jenny firmly. “Pennants are a _must-have.”_

“Well, I-I…” Rupert trailed off, looking at Jenny that way he had in the restaurant—shy and wondrous, like she was some kind of a miracle. And usually it annoyed Jenny when guys looked at her like that, because it usually meant that they thought she was miraculously hot, but…it _had_ been a really great dinner. They had barely stopped talking for long enough to eat their food.

She couldn’t hold his gaze when he was looking at her like that. Hoping to god he hadn’t caught her genuine blush, Jenny hastily turned back to the sophomore. “Thank you so much for your patience,” she said weakly.

The sophomore fixed her with an amused, knowing look. “You said that, Ms. Calendar,” she said.

* * *

_ii._

Given that Jenny’s and Rupert’s relationship hadn’t really progressed farther than a few chaste dates, she still didn’t have enough information to decide whether fucking _with_ Rupert or just plain fucking Rupert was more fun for her. So far, though, the former was _endlessly_ entertaining: the man followed her around like a lovesick puppy, and she’d never had that kind of attention before. She was honestly curious about what it would take before he finally snapped and lost patience with her.

But the thing that Jenny wasn’t dwelling on quite as much was the fact that those chaste dates had been more fun than any of her usual flings. By this point in a relationship, things had usually fizzled out and/or gone unpleasantly sour. Rupert, though, was a genuinely fun person to spend time with, even when he was looking at her like she was some kind of Disney princess come to life (which she kind of resented, but wasn’t sure how to articulate why). He was snarky, quick-witted, and shared her same esoteric sense of humor when it came to dead languages and academic research. He could talk occult stuff, he was interested in hearing about her passion projects, and he was reluctantly willing to concede that there was _some_ merit in the Internet if it was something that she was so invested in. He took her seriously in a way that no one ever had before—

That, though, was a dangerous road to go down. Jenny wasn’t into anything that wasn’t casual, and had always made sure to cut ties before people got attached.

(And obviously she wasn’t attached to _Rupert. Come on._ The man was her _total_ opposite. They were probably going to have some kind of big fight soon, and that would solve the whole thing.)

(Probably.)

Putting all thoughts of Rupert out of her mind—she had been thinking about him a _lot_ lately, and it was _very_ weird—Jenny continued to page idly through the morning paper. She was always on the lookout for interesting things to do in Sunnydale (or at least _near_ it), and sometimes Sunnydale’s more local paper had hot tips on—

She stopped. She cocked her head. She scanned the tiny little ad again: _MONSTER TRUCK RALLY COMING TO SUNNYDALE, NOVEMBER 4._

 _“Hmm,”_ said Jenny, and smiled.

* * *

She’d told Rupert very little about the date—she did indeed want to bring him out of his comfort zone to _some_ degree, because being a staid and stuffy librarian was only cute for a _little_ while before it got real old real fast—but what he _did_ know was that it was a surprise, that it was something Jenny was excited about, and that she wanted to foster a sense of trust between them. (That was what she _told_ him, at least. Mostly she just wanted to mess with him.) As such, when Jenny pulled up in front of his apartment, she was expecting Rupert to be a little nervous, a little excited, and—hopefully—a little annoyed with her. At some point, that endless well of patience was gonna run out.

What she _wasn’t_ expecting was for him to be wearing a blue suit that she’d never seen him in before, complete with polished shoes, a clean shave, and a bouquet of assorted colorful flowers. Upon seeing her car, he gave her a bright, warm smile that turned the ever-present flutter in Jenny’s stomach into an _explosion_ of butterflies. “Jenny!” he said with unhidden delight.

Jenny stepped out of the car and used the time it took to cross around the front to try and remember how to say actual words other than “you’re unbearably cute on the level of _leading man in an actually good rom-com.”_ Taking the flowers from him, she managed a smile in return, except it ended up being one so big that it probably looked kind of goofy and ridiculous. “Hi!” she said. “You look really good!”

“Well, I,” Rupert straightened his collar self-consciously, “wasn’t entirely sure where we were going. I hope I’m not overdressed.”

“No, you’re not,” said Jenny breathlessly. “You’re really not. You look great.”

“Oh?”

All of her ability to make incisively witty comments had left her. He was so _sweet_ and so _cute_ and so _sincere_ and so _gentle_ and she liked him so _much_ and—

 _Pump the brakes, Janna,_ said a voice in the back of her head. _You’re not here to get married, and you’re_ not _about to fall crazy in love with Rupert Giles just because he looks good in that suit._ Awkwardly, Jenny hid her face in the flowers, inhaling (goddamn it, of _course_ they smelled perfect) before bringing her head back up to smile at him. And it was a _real_ smile, too—not just a flirtatious smirk. She felt acutely aware of the difference. “Thank you for the flowers,” she said.

“They, um,” Rupert ducked his head, “reminded me of you.”

“Jesus Christ, Rupert, that’s cheesy even for _you,”_ said Jenny, relieved as soon as the jibe left her mouth. Now _that_ was more Jenny Calendar’s style. “I’m no English rose—”

“No, you’re more a hodge-podge of every flower imaginable,” Rupert countered with a little grin. “Shall we be off, then?”

Jenny beamed. She genuinely _was_ excited about the monster trucks.

* * *

_iii._

“Oh, come on!” Jenny laughed, grabbing Rupert’s hand and lacing their fingers together in the way that always got him all blushy. “You _can’t_ just _not dance_ at a _nightclub!_ What’s the point of showing up to a place like this if—”

“I picked the restaurant,” Rupert countered somewhat stiffly, but she could see the faint hint of a smile in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. “You were the one to pick the after-dinner entertainment. And you know for a fact that I’m not one to dance.”

“Rupert—”

 _“Ms._ Calendar,” said Rupert. “Are you _trying_ to make my life difficult?”

It wasn’t the question itself that threw Jenny off—it was the way he said it. Teasing and warm and altogether _laughing,_ as though nothing about Jenny was difficult at all. And that was _ridiculous,_ Jenny thought, color rising to her cheeks, because she had been going out of her way to be difficult and ridiculous and annoying just to prove that his smitten-ness wasn’t winning her over, because it _wasn’t,_ because serious things were _not_ her thing—

“I suppose that answers _that,”_ said Rupert affectionately, and leaned in, pressing his lips quickly to Jenny’s. The playful intimacy of the kiss took Jenny aback; she hadn’t ever been kissed like that before. Not teasing and adoring all in one—

“We could wait for a slow song,” she said.

Rupert blinked, then gave her a different kind of smile, taking her other hand in his. “Why, Jenny,” he said. “Are you _compromising_ with me?”

“I plead the fifth,” said Jenny, and his laughter brought a genuine grin to her face.

* * *

_iv._

Seeing as neither of them wanted literally every faculty member to know that they were dating, Rupert and Jenny had worked out a mutual and relatively unspoken agreement that they would only _sometimes_ sit at the same table during staff meetings—and within that small fraction, they would only _occasionally_ sit next to each other. This occasion, however, was particularly rare: their table had become somewhat overcrowded, pushing Jenny’s and Rupert’s chairs so close together that their knees were touching. Rupert kept stealing furtive glances at said knees, even though absolutely no one would extrapolate their romantic relationship from their close proximity: Mr. Phelps and Ms. Stone were _also_ sitting close to each other due to the overcrowded nature of the staff room. Things like this just happened when Snyder wouldn’t pay to remodel the old staff room, which had been appropriately roomy before it had been used as a room for the ritual sacrifice last Tuesday. God, Jenny hated Sunnydale.

But Rupert’s adorably Victorian sense of propriety—

Wait.

Fuck.

Rupert’s _annoyingly_ Victorian sense of propriety, Jenny corrected herself, even though it was her own internal monologue and no one but her would know about her slip. _Annoyingly._ It was _annoying_ that he was so sincere and sweet and treated her like he wanted to make an honest woman out of her, because anyone in the twentieth century would know from looking at Jenny that she was _so_ not the serious-relationship type. It was _annoying_ that Rupert didn’t know her well enough to know that he was barking up the wrong tree with all this _romance_ ridiculousness. _Annoying._

Anyway. Rupert’s _annoyingly_ Victorian sense of propriety had caught Jenny’s attention, and—as always—she was making plans to make him squirm just a little bit. When the topic turned to faculty-student interaction (a subject that had _everyone’s_ attention, because no one wanted to get accidentally roped into leading the talent show or chaperoning prom all by themselves), Jenny moved her hand quietly to rest on his knee.

Rupert jumped a little in his seat and nearly knocked his own chair over. It was a mark of how little everyone wanted to lead the talent show that no one noticed this. He sent her a deeply reproving look, but the authoritativeness of said look was somewhat undercut by the general panic in his eyes.

Jenny squeezed his knee with a strange feeling of pleased possessiveness, then trained her eyes ahead at Snyder. When she snuck another look at him, though—

—oh.

Hastily, Jenny turned her attention back to Snyder, doing her best not to look ridiculous as she did so. But the memory of what she’d seen persisted, and so she turned to look at Rupert again, heart hammering in her chest for a reason she couldn’t entirely define.

Rupert’s eyes were focused very pointedly on Snyder, and he still kind of had that nervous-bunny-rabbit look to him. But the thing that Jenny couldn’t stop paying attention to—the thing she couldn’t take her eyes off of—was the small, furtive, almost unconscious upturn to his mouth. He looked _happy_ , in a way she hadn’t seen him before, and she was the reason why.

And then—just as sneakily—Rupert’s hand moved to rest over hers, and Jenny’s heart did a backflip. He turned his head, just barely, to look at her, and they shared a smile, and all of a sudden—

“Principal Snyder?” said Jenny loudly.

Snyder, who had been in the middle of talking about something Jenny truly did not give a shit about, looked deeply annoyed. “Yes?”

“Can Mr. Giles and I be excused?” said Jenny. “I just got paged by one of my students. Apparently someone set a fire in the library.”

“Someone _what?”_ said Rupert, who could clearly tell that she was lying but was surprisingly good at lying himself. “Goodness, we should—”

“Just _go,”_ said Snyder irritably.

Grabbing Rupert’s arm, Jenny towed him out of the faculty room. Hurrying down the hallway, she found a door that she knew led to a broom closet, hastily tugged the door open, and pulled him inside, shutting the door behind them.

“Jenny,” said Rupert, and lately, the adoration in his tone didn’t sound ridiculous anymore.

She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him, or how she could possibly say it. Gripping his lapels, Jenny pulled Rupert down into a kiss—and she’d _meant_ for it to be fierce and passionate, but it ended up clumsy and tender instead. Funny how that worked out.

* * *

_i. (the truth)_

The opera wasn’t usually Jenny’s thing, but Rupert had picked the date location this time, and she did kind of feel like she owed him for the disaster that had been the monster truck rally. She bought one of those ultra-fancy backless black dresses that clung and draped and reached the floor, did her hair in her best approximation of an updo (hey, she didn’t have a lot of hair to work with), and added her most sophisticated-looking jewelry and some elbow-length gloves to the ensemble in order to make herself feel like someone who regularly attended the opera. Maybe she’d _be_ that person if she kept dating Rupert. It was definitely possible.

Rupert’s jaw quite literally dropped when Jenny met him outside the opera house. After making a few strangled noises, he finally managed a helpless, “Ms. Calendar,” then sort of awkwardly stuck out his arm.

Jenny took it. “Now you know how I feel when I saw you in that suit,” she teased.

“You, at least, managed to keep your composure,” said Rupert weakly.

“I had flowers to hide my face in.” On impulse, Jenny kissed him on the cheek, smiling a little when he turned his head to catch her mouth in an actual kiss. “Mm. Don’t wanna miss the opera, though, right?”

“I don’t know,” said Rupert, in that low purr of a voice that definitely solidified Jenny’s convictions to initiate some extremely unprofessional activities with him after the opera. “Can’t say I’d mind too much.”

“You absolutely would,” said Jenny affectionately. “You’ve been talking about it for weeks. Let’s get in before all the good seats are taken.”

“Jenny, I _reserved_ seats. We don’t have to worry about them being _taken.”_

“God, you know the tables are turned when it’s _me_ being the responsible one,” said Jenny, and pulled him towards the opera house.

* * *

Jenny could not fucking follow this opera for the life of her. For one thing, absolutely everything was in Italian, and her knowledge of Italian was largely limited to different kinds of pasta. For another thing, their _reserved seats_ were in a private box high above the stage, and she had to crane her neck to get a good look at the singers. Most importantly, though, was the fact that the opera was _unbearably_ boring, even if the singing itself was pretty. Nothing was getting crashed, smashed, bashed, or any of her other favorite adjectives that implied some kind of destructive activity. What was the point of sitting here in perpetuity? Readying her list of complaints, she turned in her seat to see if Rupert was as bored as she was.

Except Rupert very clearly _was not._

An absolute storm of butterflies set up shop in Jenny’s chest as she looked at her guy watching the opera. Rupert was smiling in that warm, authentically delighted way that seemed to be coming out _so_ often now, watching the story play out with rapt attention as he absently hummed the tune being sung. He knew this opera, then—well enough to love it, well enough to _remember_ it—and something about that was just so _unbearably_ sweet. Everything about this man was sweet. He was sincere, gentle, smart, kind—

Oh, god.

Jenny’s sharp intake of breath jerked Rupert from his reverie. With a concerned expression, he turned towards her. “Are you all right, darling?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Jenny, heart pounding. “Yeah. Yes. I—” Giving up on attempting to explain whatever the fuck it was she was feeling, she instead reached out, lacing her fingers with his, and said tenderly, “I fucking hate the opera.”

Rupert gave her a sideways grin, then said, _“I_ fucking hate monster trucks.”

Jenny had to press her hands to her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. “Rupert, is this _revenge?”_

“Jenny, are you suggesting that you were attempting to inflict injury upon me by way of monster trucks?” said Rupert innocently, and raised her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “I only wish to take you to see something that I myself enjoy. Isn’t that what _you_ wanted?”

The smile stealing across Jenny’s face—it was inevitable, she decided. Inevitable. No point in fighting it anymore. She leaned forward—

“We are _not_ going to be that couple that kisses through the _best_ song in this _entire_ production,” said Rupert, and turned his head away. But the butterflies didn’t subside at that, because Jenny could just snuggle into his side and watch him watch the opera, and somehow that felt more intimate than any kiss ever could.


End file.
